From the opening, “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs,” to the ending, “a way a lone a lost a last a loved a long the:” Finnegans Wake is the most perplexing – and perhaps the greatest – novel ever written, the supreme modernist fiction, the first novel written in multiple languages at once, the most totalizing eco-text and political manifesto imaginable, and the first post-human account of human desires, wishes and dreams.  It is also the account of the greatest night out ever in a Dublin pub.  You deserve to read it.  In this seminar we will form a reading community that reads it together.  

     Become familiar with HCE (Here Comes Everybody, introduced as ‘Howth Castle and Environs’ in the sentence above), ALP (Anna Livia Plurabelle, the main character and the river Liffey that flows through Dublin) Shem (a stand-in for Joyce) and Shawn (his alter-ego), Issy (inspired by the Joyce’s daughter Lucia), and a list of others as you follow how James Joyce delineates the deepest utopian hope of life and the living: the possibility of rising from the dead.  We will be reading the book as a text that answers in advance some of the most vital questions posed by contemporary literary, cultural and critical theory, by environmental critique, posthumanism, the history of consciousness and politics: you will be encouraged to bring your own interests to bear on this most global-scale of books. Still, do not be daunted: remember that this novel is based on a raucous popular ballad, ‘Finnegans Wake’ that tells of a bricklayer who fell off a ladder – and survives.  As Maria Jolas pointed out, it’s a book that calls for workers to awaken (“Finnegans, Wake!”) – a call for all of the workers of the world to come back to life and to renew our collective humanity. Get ready for the stupendous  ‘Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk….’